The thrilling extra-inning contest where the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a combined 51M watchers across the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this represents the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday epic contest secured 27.33M audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the game drew 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language program in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12M. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match series drew 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total US average reached over 16 million. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase over last year and the network’s best playoff performance since the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen various tongues.
